Words in all their forms will be celebrated when a popular festival returns this week.

The Evesham Festival of Words launches this Thursday, ahead of three days full of poetry, music, workshops and quizzes.

Chair of the festival, Sue Ablett, is delighted to see the event back at full strength.

"After two difficult years we are thrilled to be back with a great programme of events for our main Festival weekend,” she said.

“The people of Evesham and surrounding areas have the opportunity to meet some authors, hear some great talks and join other events."

A total of 13 events take place across the festival, which runs to Sunday evening.

The Henrician will host Words and Music of Evesham on Thursday night to whet the appetite ahead of the start of the main festival on Friday.

Friday begins with a talk on exploring your own family tree at 10.30am before authors Jane Bettany and Helen Yendall speak out on their journeys into writing at 2pm.

Then at 3.30pm, there will be an interview with author Amanda Reynolds, whose bestselling book ‘Close To Me’ has now been adapted into a six-part TV series starring Connie Nielsen and Christopher Eccleston.

Friday ends with the Festival Quiz Night at Raphael’s Restaurant.

Over the weekend there will be two workshops, one entitled Writing Funny and the other Travel Writing.

On Saturday there will be an event on poetry inspired by the sea before a walking tour of Evesham Abbey to find out more about the ongoing restoration work.

Then in the afternoon Gregory Leadbetter will lead a talk on Housman’s Last Poems before a chat with crime write Vaseem Khan on Saturday night.

On Sunday afternoon is a talk entitled ‘The Mitfords, Their Times and Their Friends’ which will be followed by an afternoon tea while in the evening The Northwick Hotel will host an event celebrating remarkable women, where tributes will be paid to local author and founder of the festival Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn, who died last year.

A week after the festival, on Friday July 8 at 7.30 pm, Bengeworth Church will play host to an evening of music with EODS performing Once Upon a Song, a family-friendly concert featuring songs from musicals inspired by fairy tales and literature.

Further information, including the full programme, can be found online at www.eveshamfestivalofwords.org.